science wire

Middle-aged women from more deprived backgrounds in Great Britain are significantly more likely to smoke and face greater challenges when trying to quit, according to a new study from researchers at UCL. The study, published in BMC Medicine and funded by Cancer Research UK, analysed women's smoking habits by age and socio-economic status and revealed that for women from less deprived backgrounds, smoking rates were highest in adolescence and early adulthood before declining through middle-age and later life.

Women in the UK who use online banking tools are nearly five times as likely to manage their household finances and about twice as likely to have the final say in major financial decisions, compared with women who don't bank online, a new UCL-led study has found. Using nationally representative data of heterosexual couples aged 20-64 from the United Kingdom Household Longitudinal Study, researchers show how online banking enhances its usersfinancial influence within their relationship, making them more likely to manage the couple-s money and have the final say in major financial decisions.

A group-based support programme for foster carers significantly improves carer wellbeing, reduces burnout and stress, and strengthens relationships with children in care, while also offering good value for money, finds a new study led by a UCL researcher.

Alzheimer's is Britain's biggest killer and a key focus of UCL research. Dr Eleftheria Kodosaki and Sophie Hicks (both UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology) outline their vital lab work developing a finger-prick test to speed up diagnosis, in an article for The Conversation.

Nitrous oxide used for sedating patients during dental appointments has a significant environmental impact, with wide variation in use and wastage across the UK, according to a new study by UCL researchers. Inhalation sedation uses a dose of nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas, and is an established technique for managing dental anxiety in children and adults.

Babies and very young sauropods - the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that in adulthood were the largest animals to have ever walked on land - were a key food sustaining predators in the Late Jurassic, according to a new study led by a UCL researcher. The study, published in the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science Bulletin , used data from fossils laid down 150 million years ago in the Morrison Formation*, in the United States, to map out a "food web" of the time - a gigantic network of who ate what and who ate whom.

After decades of growth, the use of antimicrobials - including antibiotics - in livestock peaked in 2013 and then dropped by nearly a third by 2020, finds a major new study led by UCL researchers.

Studentscore knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust remains insecure, with many struggling to answer basic questions about what happened, to whom, where and when, finds new research from the UCL Centre for Holocaust Education. The findings, published in the Knowledge and Understandings of the Holocaust report, show progress in students' knowledge and understanding compared with results from the Centre-s previous national study in 2016, but also reveals persistent gaps and prevailing misconceptions.

Clinical NHS practices to dispose of pregnancy remains following an early-stage miscarriage (first trimester) appear at odds with some patient wishes and therefore are not conducive to inclusive care, a new study finds.

The latest results from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) collaboration, which involves UCL researchers, combined four methods for measuring the expansion of the universe for the first time. Dark energy is the mysterious force that is accelerating the expansion of the universe and represents about 70% of the total content of the universe.

During the last ice age, the Atlantic Ocean's powerful current system remained active and continued to transport warm, salty water from the tropics to the North Atlantic despite extensive ice cover across much of the Northern Hemisphere, finds new research led by UCL scientists. The findings, published in  Nature , show that despite the Earth being in an ice age, part of the ocean's interior - known as North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) - was only about 1.8°C colder than today, far from the near-freezing conditions previously assumed.

Over one million people are estimated to currently have glaucoma in the UK, a figure projected to reach more than 1.6 million by 2060, according to a study led by UCL and Moorfields researchers.

People who have ADHD traits at age 10 are more likely than those without such traits to have physical health problems and to report physical health-related disability at age 46, according to a study led by UCL and University of Liverpool researchers. The researchers say the findings likely reflect the impact of a wide range of risk factors for poor health that are linked to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and society's response to people with ADHD across adulthood.

A major international research project involving UCL is underway to test whether a finger prick-style blood test could be used to help diagnose Alzheimer's disease, even before symptoms begin.

A mysterious bar-shaped cloud of iron has been discovered inside the iconic Ring Nebula by a European team led by astronomers at UCL and Cardiff University.

Men with high-risk locally advanced prostate cancer in England will soon be offered the drug abiraterone on the NHS, following landmark findings from the UCL-led STAMPEDE trial.

A newlywed has become the first NHS patient in England with an aggressive form of leukaemia to have a pioneering treatment developed by UCL researchers.

Writing for The Conversation, Professor Daisy Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) debunks the 'mad artistic genius' theory and explores the complexities behind the stereotype.

Writing for The Conversation, Professor Daisy Fancourt (UCL Institute of Epidemiology & Health Care) debunks the 'mad artistic genius' theory and explores the complexities behind the stereotype.

A new study demonstrates the effectiveness of a widely-used eye injection to manage the previously untreatable rare condition, hypotony, in a project by clinical researchers at UCL and Moorfields Eye Hospital.

Two-year-olds in England watch television, videos or other digital content for an average of two hours each day, double the daily recommended screen time, new UCL-led research finds.

An estimated 1.6 million adults in England, Wales and Scotland used drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro to help lose weight between early 2024 and early 2025, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

People prescribed the new generation of weight loss drugs may not receive sufficient nutritional guidance to support safe and sustainable weight loss, leaving them vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies and muscle loss, say experts at UCL and the University of Cambridge.

Professor Max Telford (UCL Biosciences) examines how the earliest fossils of complex animals, which appeared suddenly in rocks that were 538 million years old, evolved.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration involving UCL researchers has achieved a new record in its search for dark matter and for the first time picked up signals from neutrinos produced in the Sun's core, a milestone in sensitivity. Analysing data from the world's most sensitive dark matter detector collected over 417 days, the international research team put the best-ever limits on weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), a leading candidate for what makes up our universe's invisible mass.